


The Precipice

by TurtleTotem



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Arranged Marriage, M/M, Modern Royalty, Non-powered AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-17
Updated: 2015-05-17
Packaged: 2018-03-30 22:31:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3954256
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TurtleTotem/pseuds/TurtleTotem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prince Erik of Genosha must marry before he can take the throne. But Charles must be mad to even think of accepting the proposal of someone he met less than an hour ago...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [luninosity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/luninosity/gifts).



> Inspired by [this](http://turtletotem.tumblr.com/post/101389843336/luninosity-turtletotem-luninosity) photo on Tumblr of regal bearded James McAvoy.
> 
> [Translated into Spanish](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7621678/chapters/17350417) by CherikMcbender.

Erik Lehnsherr, Crown Prince of Genosha, thought the worst trouble, scandal and crisis of his life was behind him after he came out as homosexual. It had never occurred to him that his orientation did not, in fact, invalidate the law’s requirement that he have a legally married consort at his side before he could inherit the throne.

He had time still, Erik told himself every time his pulse started to pound in panic. Yes, his mother’s health was failing, and if she passed away before he married it could conceivably cause a governmental collapse, but she was hardly at death’s door. In fact, she was well enough to prepare portfolios of suitable young men and make arch comments about living to see her grandchildren.

Tonight she had a number of candidates to show Erik, as they sat together in her personal suite, eating pink macarons and listening to _Barry Manilow,_ Mother, really?

“This one’s very handsome, I think,” his mother said, opening the folder of some noble’s son from Portugal.

“I suppose,” Erik replied. To be honest, very few of the Suitable Candidates appealed to him at all — in fact, it was beginning to be worrisome. Yes, many of them were attractive, but in the way of pampered, silky-haired little dogs. Pretty and pouty and lazy and spoiled. Even the graying older men looked like boys, useless little boys who would have no idea what to do with Erik or with the position needed his husband to hold — at his side, not just on his arm.

Then his mother handed him a photo of the Portuguese lordling, a candid taken at some manner of charity function — and Erik’s eyes landed on someone in the background. A man close to his own age, with dark hair and a short auburn beard, smiling and extending his hand to someone out of frame. Erik’s stomach jolted at the sight of him like it hadn’t since his boarding school days, when his dorm mates’ faces suddenly became beautiful and confusing. “Mama, who’s he?”

His mother frowned, fiddled with her tablet for a few minutes. “Charles Francis Xavier,” she said. “Stepson to a particularly crass and unpleasant English duke — he has only a courtesy title himself. He’s made the most of it, it seems, done quite a lot for various children’s charities, real work, not just money… He’s pursued an unusual amount of education himself, he just received his doctorate in genetics… But he has quite a reputation, darling, partying and how do they say it, catting around? At least you know he does like men, but, oh, darling, the stepfather really is quite crass. Not at all a suitable connection.”

She had found more photos; Erik peered over her shoulder at an official-looking portrait. Charles Xavier gazed — glared, almost — at the camera as if it stood in the way of more important activities, muscular arms crossed impatiently. His chin was proud under the unseemly scruff of beard, eyebrows expressive, humor lurking in the bright blue eyes. 

There, whispered that knot in Erik’s stomach, stood a man who could help rule a kingdom.

“I want to meet him,” Erik said.

His mother frowned and looked at him long and hard. Then she nodded slowly and closed the Portuguese lordling’s folder. “Very well. I will see what can be done.”


	2. Chapter 2

Charles thought it had to be some kind of mistake, when he received an invitation to have tea with Queen Edwina of the small, peculiar nation of Genosha – an invitation complete with private jet pick-up.

“Moira, I am _no one,”_ Charles insisted to his publicist. “I barely even count as nobility. How would Queen Edwina of Genosha even know I exist? Surely this was supposed to go to Kurt, or, or—”

“Then that’s her mistake to make up to you,” Moira said firmly. “When a queen invites you to tea, you practice your curtsy and get on the plane.”

*

Queen Edwina received him very graciously and with no sign that she had expected anyone else. The tabloids had put her at death’s door, and she did certainly look pale and tired, fragile. Plenty of life still sparkled in her large, expressive eyes, however, and in her sweetly accented voice. Their conversation was never less than interesting and flawlessly polite, and yet Charles felt very distinctly that he was being evaluated, even interrogated. Everything from his recent work with rural education initiatives, to his opinion on shoe fashions, to the exact way he held his head while politely disagreeing with a queen, seemed to be subject to Edwina’s sharp assessment – and largely approval, he rather thought, but all the same it got his back up. By what right did this lady summon him to be evaluated? What did she want from him?

“I am terribly sorry, Charles,” she said after a while, when the macarons were gone and the second pot of tea gone cold. “I believe I’ve overtired myself. Pray excuse me a moment. I would not leave you alone, of course – my son Erik will be joining you.” With an oddly knowing smile, she rose, an unobtrusive attendant immediately appearing at her arm, and glided from the room.

She had hardly stepped out of the sitting room when a man stepped into it, tall and whip-thin-gorgeous enough to make Charles nearly choke on his cold tea.

“Lord Charles Xavier,” said the man, assumedly Prince Erik, with a flawless – even generous – bow. “I have an offer to make to you.”

*

Charles’s first instinct, on being asked for his hand in marriage by a prince he had never laid eyes on before, was to laugh in his face and hail a cab to the airport. Really, the only thing that kept him in the room (if not in his seat) was the recollection of Prince Erik’s very splashy coming-out a year or so ago. Charles had followed the story with great interest and great admiration, both deep and... shallow, for Prince Erik. With that story in mind, it was just barely believable that this offer might be legit.

“Of course I would not normally broach the idea so soon,” Erik said, standing stiff and straight with his hands clasped behind his back. He had followed Charles to the window, when he fled the table in his surprise and confusion, but did not press into his personal space. “I would have liked for us to spend time together, get to know one another. But my mother’s latest doctor’s visit was… disheartening. It is vital that I not… that she not… that is, the importance of having everything in place before…” His thin lips flattened to a grim line, and his eyes, which had seemed cold to Charles a moment ago, were, very briefly, anything but. Charles resisted a surprisingly strong urge to step forward and offer comfort.

“I understand your situation is dire,” he said instead, “but you don’t even know me.”

“That is not quite true. I believe I have learned everything about you that is available to be learned. Your past, certainly, and also your present; I’ve been observing you from afar for some weeks now.”

Charles felt his eyes widen. “That’s… that’s rather creepy, Erik, to be frank.”

Erik shifted uncomfortably. “It could not be helped. I am, of course, willing to answer any question, open any record to you in return.”

Charles raised an eyebrow, somehow quite sure that that was no small offer, from this man.

“I have been nothing but impressed with your character,” Erik said. “You are a man with every conceivable privilege who uses that power to lift others up. That is precisely what a king – or, in your case, a prince consort – should do.”

“And how lucky I am,” Charles said dryly, “to have earned your approbation, to be the one you descend from on high to scoop out of the morass. I suppose I should, in all honesty, be flattered; I’m quite sure you could have literally anyone you chose.”

Only the slightest quirk of the mouth, almost a smile, hinted that Erik perceived he was being scolded. “The sort of man who would be mine for the asking is exactly the sort of man I do not need. It’s actually a point in your favor that we disagree on certain philosophies and methods; I don’t need a yes-man, and frankly I enjoy a good argument. At our cores, I believe you and I want the same thing.

"As for being flattered, feel free – and it may help, on that count, to know that I find you extremely physically attractive – but I would rather you be thoughtful. Your comparatively low position in the aristocracy has granted you a level of privacy and independence that will be lost if you accept my offer. Being the Prince Consort of Genosha would become your life as surely as being King will become mine, and I would not have you surprised by it.”

True, Charles was certain, and yet the power he would get in exchange… Power was what enabled a person to _do_ things in the world, and Charles knew, better than Erik could guess, what it was to be powerless, unable to protect himself or anyone else. There was no virtue in that. If he married Erik, he would have power in his own right, responsibilities and the ability to see them through. And he could never, never again be under the thumb of a mere English duke.

As for Erik himself – he was certainly attractive enough. If someone had deliberately sought to bring all Charles’s most preferred physical attributes to life, they could hardly have done a better job. The admission that Erik found him attractive in return was… heartwarming, one might say. The man seemed to value Charles for all the reasons Charles would most like to be valued, which was not only flattering but spoke well of Erik’s standards in return. True, Erik was also presumptuous and high-handed, with a manner as cold and stiff as Charles’s was warm and open – but somehow the prospect of peeling away all those hard-shelled outer layers to find the more tender Erik within filled Charles with anticipation and delight.

He stood on a precipice, Charles thought, heady and intoxicating. Was he prepared to leap?

“Yes,” he said, and laughed. “Yes. I accept.”

“You do?” Erik’s eyes searched his, whatever he found there slowly brightening his entire face until he could almost be said to be smiling. “Good.” He extended a hand.

Charles shook it heartily, still laughing. “After all this, Erik, suddenly you’re shy? We’re about to be the world’s craziest runaway engagement. We’d best move beyond handshakes.”

He stepped forward, Erik bent to meet him, and the kiss he had intended as hardly more than a joke took on a life of its own. Only after several long, breathless minutes did they separate, hands reluctantly sliding away from each other’s waists, shoulders, hair.

“We’d best go tell my mother the good news,” Erik half-whispered.

“Yes,” Charles said, grinning at the slight daze in Erik’s eyes, the reddened places where his skin had scrubbed against Charles’s beard. “Good news all around.”


End file.
